Wishing For Fools
by Bellie149
Summary: When Lily realises she no longer hates James Potter, she may even in fact love him. After all, there is a thin line between love and hate. I do not own these characters, they of course belong to JK Rowling.


Lily Evans was very stubborn. Her mother told her this when she was two and half years old and running around with her dark red hair resembling something like a bird's nest, refusing to let her mother brush her hair. This stubborn streak diminished slightly as she got older but sometimes it would rear its head and Lily would give in. It happened most often when the Marauders invited her to their parties where her dislike for breaking rules and her dislike for one of the boys made sure that she never went, and if her friends persuaded her to she would sit in a corner with a stony expression.

It was this stubbornness that ensured her feud with one James Potter carried on for six years. At the start of their seventh year, James Potter returned to Hogwarts a very different person. Lily was surprised to realise that he was more mature, took the responsibilities of his Headship seriously, and even though the number of pranks that occurred throughout the year increased, James' participation was smaller. He had even stopped randomly hexing Slytherins.

Lily was sat at the Gryffindor table eating her breakfast when she found herself thinking about James Potter. She was comparing the James who she met on her very first day to the James who was sat in the middle of the table, eating toast and jam. Lily looked at her plate; she was also eating toast and jam. This startled her. For seven years they had been eating exactly the same breakfast and she hadn't even noticed.

She began to wonder what else she hadn't noticed, so slyly looked at him from the corner of her eye. She looked at him, just looked, and withheld any judgement towards him.

James Potter was a man; he was no longer a boy. He was tall, and thanks to Quidditch, had surprisingly toned physique-Lily could see the muscles in his arm as he reached across the table. She felt her pace quickening and her cheeks heating up as she looked at his face, his gorgeous, tanned, face. James Potter had cheekbones! He looked up and immediately his eyes met Lily's. She stared at him, marvelling at how mesmerising his hazel eyes were, before abruptly looking down at her plate.

Lily chided herself; she shouldn't be looking at James Potter. She most definitely shouldn't be thinking about how safe she feels when she sits next to him in Potions and the Slytherins hiss vile things at her; or the butterflies that fly around her stomach when he looks at her with a genuine smile, something that she sees only in their Heads' meetings; or the warmth she feels when he helps her through the portrait hole in their Heads' dorm-

Lily shook her head. There was no reason for her to experience those feelings, none at all. She hated James Potter; well okay maybe hate was a strong word. She disliked him, but not as much as she used to. Abandoning her toast, Lily began to question her feelings. She didn't dislike him at all! She liked him; in fact she may even have stronger feelings. Feelings of-

"Oh my God!" Lily jumped off the bench and ran out of the Great Hall, ignoring the looks from her friends, the Marauders and anyone else nearby who heard her shout. She ran all the way to the Astronomy Tower, after deciding that nowhere else in the school had enough air supply. She breathed heavily, leaning against the railings.

She couldn't possibly have strong feelings for James Potter, it was James Potter. They didn't get on at all, and even if she did like him, nothing would come of it. She had rejected him far too many times. He would be a fool for still hoping she would come round, and James Potter wasn't really a fool. He was far too self assured to think any actions regarding Lily were foolish.

But Lily found herself wishing he was a fool, because if James Potter was a fool, he still liked her. And as she had just admitted to herself she liked him.

_Seriously Evans, you think you __**just**__ like him_? Lily's subconscious reared its head.

"Lily?" Lily spun round.

There he was.

James Potter.

Suddenly Lily couldn't breathe and everything she had been trying to pretend she didn't feel was forced into harsh realisation. She loved him. She stared at his beautiful face that was full of concern. Was it concern for her? She hoped to Merlin that it was.

"Yes?" She took a tentative step towards him.

"Is everything okay?" He took a step towards her. "I only ask because you left the Great Hall quite suddenly."

"Yeah, I just realised something. How did you know where I was?"

"I have my ways. What did you realise?"

"What ways?"

"Stop avoiding the question." James stepped closer to Lily.

Lily could feel her pulse quickening as he moved closer to her. Now was the time to tell him.

"I-er, I..." Lily couldn't get the words to leave her mouth. They were there, on the tip of her tongue. She turned away from him and tried to gather up what courage she was meant to have, she was a Gryffindor after all.

"Lils?"

That was what she needed. She turned round and looked at him, her emerald eyes meeting his hazel ones.

"James Potter, would you like to go out with me?"

James' jaw dropped open, and Lily could feel her self getting red.

"I mean, if you don't want to its fine, I wouldn't expect that you would want to, obviously, after everything that's happened and everything I said to you. I didn't mean what I said, I take it all back, I really do-"

Lily's rambling stopped when James cupped her face with his hands and kissed her softly on the mouth.

"I'd love to."


End file.
